The passé récent is the recent past tense, it is used to talk about something that has happened only moments before.
If you remember the Futur proche, where we say we are “going to” do something shortly. The passé recent is the opposite of this.
It is when something has “just” happened and is now complete.
Page Contents
The Past Tense In English
In English we would use the word “just” as an auxiliary with the past tense of whatever verb we were using – “I just drank”.
The Past Tense In French
The passé recent is easy to form in French but can seem a little strange at first.
The verb Venir is used as the auxiliary, in the present tense, followed by “de” and then the infinitive for the verb you are trying to talk about.
| Je | Viens | +de | +infinitive |
| Tu | Viens | +de | +infinitive |
| Il/elle | Viens | +de | +infinitive |
| nous | Venons | +de | +infinitive |
| vous | Venez | +de | +infinitive |
| Ils/elles | Viennent | +de | +infinitive |
You might be looking at this and thinking Venir means “to come”
So to say “I just ate”, when translate it directly, you basically say “I come to eat” which of course makes no sense.
If you ever see venir, followed by “de” and the infinitive, translate it as “I just… ”
Je viens de manger – I just ate
The passé recent really is that simple.
The only other thing to note is that if the infinitive starts with a vowel or an H, then the ‘de’ becomes d’
Je viens d’arriver – I just arrived
Using “Just” While Already Talking In The Past, In French
So this can get a little confusing and probably is a bit beyond a beginner level, but I will quickly go over it anyway in case you come across it when reading.
If you are telling a story about something in the past, you may need to talk about something that just happened, in the time line of the story.
For example “last Tuesday, I had just eaten when…Steve arrived”
As you can in this little story, I have just eaten… but as you see its “I had just eaten”…as it actually happened last Tuesday, not 30 minutes ago. A subtle difference, but an important one.
If you want to say “I had just”
You need to change venir from the present tense to the l’imparfair past tense. This shows it happened in the past, but explains it had just happened at during the story you are telling.
So “I just”, will become “I had just”
The rules are exactly the same, part from Venir being in the l’imparfait
| Je | Vienais | +de | +infinitive |
| Tu | Vienais | +de | +infinitive |
| Il/elle | Vienait | +de | +infinitive |
| nous | Venions | +de | +infinitive |
| vous | Veniez | +de | +infinitive |
| Ils/elles | Venaient | +de | +infinitive |
Conclusion
Although the passé compose is the more commonly used past tense, the Passé Récent is a simple and effective way to describe something that as literally just happened and you want to talk about.
You will see this popping up all the time when people are telling stories and describing events. It just a nice little past tense to know.
(Read the next lesson – The Passé Composé – French Past Tense)
Ian is the owner and main writer of Reaching Fluency. He is a native English speaker, French speaker and Japanese learner and general lover of language learning.
You can read more about him on his Authors Page or link with him on social media
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